Uh.. this is sort of French pop? I’ve never heard of Annie Cordy, who appears to be an actress/singer, but this is a kids/novelty song. It’s a silly singalong with lots of nonsense syllables, kids overdubbed on the chorus, the works. Super upbeat rhythm, tropical feel… I think the cover says more than I can about it. The more I listen, the more I start wanting to sing along, and I’m going to stop because I don’t want to start dreaming that I’m stuck in a children’s TV show or have a nightmare where Annie is forcing me to drink tea from the enormous cup on the top of her head. Popular in France though, I guess?

Why am I such a curmudgeon? There’s one thing that really sticks in my big fat craw about these songs; the chorus. I really just hate them. I want to steal the masters and cut them out with kitchen scissors. It’s like someone in France held a gun to the heads of each pop group and make them read a treatise about why overblown, muddy, terribly uncatchy choruses are in perpetuum the highest ideal of quality song-writing. This could have been so enjoyable, too- 80s arena rock nonsense of the most fun order. The beginning of the song sets it up a nice, bouncy bass, sheets of echoing guitar chords, and two falling notes banged out on a lovely sounding synthesizer.  Actually, that bass kind of reminds me of the line in the Cold Crush’s Punk Rock Rap. (???) But the chorus ruins it. But that vocal line is no good, and the fat synth chords that should tickle me right down to the extremities don’t really do it for me. It reminds me of the tuneless Japanese rock acts popular among the anime crowd. Like it needs a remix to excise all the shit parts.  The off-kilter spook house synth at the end is an unexpected way to end the song, though.

Another listenable album cut from Souchon. Not great, but it grooves along in its way, and it’s less offensively annoying than some of his other stuff. It may even be a little catchy, although lord knows that guitar solo could be playing on a smooth jazz station and no one would think twice. It’s got a nice, round, solid synth and flanged/clicky guitars. It is, however, completely unmemorable. Less than two minutes after writing that it was “catchy,” I can’t recall the chorus of the song at all; yeesh. At least Souchon didn’t stick his neck up and out of the instruments to barf his voice all over the music.

Few types of music are as soporific to me as soft & plunky balladeer bullshit. So when Souchon pulls out a song featuring plucky guitar with plinky, plunking percussion and the sad tings of triangles (or whatever that instrument is), it just doesn’t do it for me. Not least when he opens it with a big burst of 50s musical-style strings that sounds like he was writing the sheet music with a blindfold on, or when that same swell of strings comes in to give a little emotional heft to the music that ends up feels intrusive rather than bolstering. I’m not a fan of his reedy voice and vocal melodies, and this song certainly didn’t change my mind. The samples of animal noise that make it sounds like he’s trying to poop sensitivity all over a magical lakeshore don’t help my inclination to fall asleep during this one. To wit: I’m not a lovelorn French schoolgirl in the early 80s with a literary bent; this song is not to my tastes, and probably not yours either.

I was prepared for more garbage from Souchon, but this album track (how did this get on the playlist?) is surprisingly pleasant.  The whole song is bouncy in a swinging way.  Opens with a multi-tracked Souchon harmonizing with himself before a walking bass line and bouncy guitar show up to anchor the song.  All real instruments!  Maybe that’s why I like it.  The arrangement is nice, with different instruments breaking in for a bar or two.  The song is sung in English, the strings are nice, the main melody is pleasing: I really can’t complain on this one.  Enjoyable, although I can’t really imagine a time when I would want to put this on- a snowy day spent at home?  Picnic in the park?  For some reason it sounds like Christmas music to me.

Tiringly adult contemporary.  Soulless.  The bass has a nice whump to it by pairing it with the kick drum, and I like that synth sound, but Souchon is not a good songwriter to  me.  He’s got no mojo.  He buries the strangely snappy-sounding instruments, like sticking a bunch of shiny objects in a pile of mud.  And his voice is so thin and not soulful in the slightest.  This is like sub-Jimmy Buffett bar music for the most desperate or lazy situations only.

At times during this project I’m glad I can’t understand French.  And here’s a good example of why not: if I had to guess, I would guess that the lyrics to this song are a spongy, soaking-wet ball of  bullshit about love and a relationship, just told in the spry poetry of the synth ballad.  A poor, half-gelled synth ballad, with a bland, flat mix, drums that, if not from a machine, are from a robot playing the drums, and unnecessary swelling vox that rub up against shrill grating synth sounds in the worst way.  Not my idea of fun; there’s not a whole lot I want to say about this song except that it’s pretty dull and it hurts to listen to.  Sounds like a forgotten single off the soundtrack to a terrible film.

Ugh.  Just ugh.  Starting with a terribly underwhelming drum track, this track establishes itself in a minute as a boring adult contemporary shitpile; a ballad gone wrong in the most tedious way.  Fuck the synths.  Fuck the sax.  This song is better left forgotten.  This is a song that live under the most mind-numbing soundtracks of tedious 80s films.  Ugh.

Chamfort is moving his way into the 90s here, and it sounds like it.  It’s dripping wet with the hallmarks of dawn-of-the-90s pop: annoying piano synth sounds and cheap wailing guitars up at the fucking front of the mix.  Even the drum samples sound like it…  not to say I’m averse.  Well, maybe to that chintzy piano line, but the the choppy synths are okay, and the strings I like.  The sound is just softer in that 90s way.  I guess the problem is that it’s just not exciting.  Maybe this should tell me that Chamfort (and many, many other musicians) is just keeping up with the times in a way that doesn’t suggest aesthetic decision making outside of the norm, whatever that may be.  It’s okay, but it has just enough oompf to be a decent pop song.